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Health indicators in Ratanakiri are the worst in Cambodia.[1] Malaria, tuberculosis, intestinal parasites, cholera, diarrhea, and vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles are endemic.[2][1] Rattanakiri has Cambodia's highest rates of maternal and child mortality,[2] with 22.9% of children dying before the age of five.[3] Ratanakiri also has the country's highest rates of severe malnutrition.[2] Ratanakiri residents' poor health can be attributed to a variety of factors, including poverty, physical remoteness, language and cultural barriers that prevent Khmer Loeu from obtaining medical care, poor infrastructure and access to water, lack of accountability in the medical community, and exacerbating environmental factors such as natural resource degradation, decreasing food production, and internal migration.[2][1] The province has one referral hospital, 10 health centers, and 17 health posts.[4] Medical equipment and supplies are minimal, and most health facilities are staffed by nurses or midwifes, who are often poorly trained and irregularly paid.

In Cambodia, about 85 percent of the population living in rural area and not having access to primary health care, among other basic services. To improve this situation, Cambodia's health care system is getting a boost through a program that contracts for better health service delivery in rural areas, which is already proving successful. The new country's health strategy 2008-2015 proposes to scale up contracting programs to reach more of the poor and further improve health care system performance, including independent monitoring and evaluation.